Workbook on Digital Private Papers > Glossary
Glossary - B
Bitstream
It is standard practice, regardless of what preservation strategies are to be adopted, to preserve a copy of an object in its original form, thereby preserving the bitstream indefinitely. This provides curators with the option of returning to the original bitstream, rather than a migrated version, when undertaking subsequent preservation actions. In some cases, where an unusual digital object in an unsupported format is deposited, an archive repository may only undertake to preserve the original bitstream and associated documentation. This would support future activities even if the record was currently unreadable in its simplest form, every digital object consists of a bitstream, which is an ordered sequence of bits (binary zeros and ones). In order to transform the bitstream into something meaningful (e.g. a particular type of file which is understandable to humans), it must be reformatted to comply with a particular file format using a computer system with the correct combination of hardware or software.
